The global hair care market stands as a $85.5 billion industry in 2017, and is projected to reach a staggering $94.7 billion by 2021. Yet, despite the increased number of hair care products and supplements hitting shelves each year, over 80 million men and women experience hair loss in the United States.

Per a study by the American Hair Loss Association, over 66% of men will experience some form of appreciable hair loss by the age of thirty-five. With approximately 25% of men starting the discomforting process of male pattern hair loss at twenty-one, 85% of men have drastically thinner hair by the time they reach fifty-years-old.

More than 21 million women are currently fighting some form of hair loss, accounting for over 40% of all active patients. By the age of sixty, 80% of women experience noticeable hair loss, with 12% proactively seeking restoration treatment methods.

Although these statistics would suggest a more collective effort amongst industry leaders to proactively find a way to fix this problem, the trends have revealed the opposite. Due to an ecosystem of loose regulations, cheap supplement sourcing, and a business model built on overselling to a dependent audience – the industry has been fueled by driving profits instead of solving problems. When one Wilhelmina model noticed he was quickly losing hair at a pivotal point in his career, the search for an effective product revealed the surprising lack of safe, natural and healthy solutions.

Spending over a decade rigorously researching natural alternatives to a drug that negatively impacted his libido for seven years, Tsetis and his team reverse engineered the formula of a leading pharmaceutical only using patented sourced supplements. What they produced was a tested and proven hair health product that is now helping millions across the country avoid or actively cure for hair loss.

Founded by Giorgos Tsetis, Nutrafol now stands as the fastest-growing nutraceutical supplement for healthy hair growth. In 2015, Nutrafol teamed up with world-renowned hair loss experts in the field of dermatology and integrative healthcare to develop a nutraceutical hair growth supplement composed of clinically-tested ingredients.

The startup recently closed its Series A round of funding, with Unilever Ventures, the investment and private-equity vertical of the consumer goods company, stepping in as the lead investor. Unilever was introduced to Nutrafol through investment platform, CircleUp. The investment from Unilever Ventures, along with other strategic partners, will be used to advance research efforts, product development and expand within the medical, salon and e-commerce channels. With continued investment in research and clinical studies, Nutrafol is poised to take the lead in the fragmented multibillion-dollar global hair loss industry.

I spoke with Giorgos about the vision behind his company, disrupting the industry, and his blueprint for making sure millions of people no longer suffer from hair loss.

You spent years as a professional model, but you're also an industrial engineer -- What opportunity or void did you see beyond your personal experience that inspired the idea for Nutrafol?

Giorgos Tsetis: I am an entrepreneur and have an engineering background that allows me to think in strategic ways to solve complex problems. Of course, I did have this very personal experience. But, to be honest with you, getting into this category wasn't directly a choice, it felt more like destiny. I say that, because their are literally millions who suffer from what I was suffering from. Aside from being a model, I owned an engineering company in New York, and business was steadily growing. The tipping point came when I found out the University of Washington published research that said my issue could cause permanent sexual dysfunction without the specific drug I was taking. That's when I panicked, reached out to my business partner and dear friend, and we begun to dig deeper into the issue. As we started diving deep, we recognized there was a tremendous white space.

Through the process of doing so much extensive research and throwing yourself into this new industry -- What did you learn about how to solve such a complex problem as this?

Giorgos Tsetis: When you want to solve an issue, you must first thoroughly understand the problem. A lot of times, especially in the pharma world, everybody is trying to identify the magic pill that targets a single trigger. But, that's the exact reason there hasn't been a drug that holistically and indefinitely ends the problem. You can't zero in on one specific trait or symptom, you really have to solve for the many causes. When it comes to hair loss for men and women, there are several causes that disrupt the natural hair growth cycle. Basic vitamins and minerals only act as a temporary bandaid for hair health deficiencies, which is simply not enough. Hair loss and thinning hair means your body is imbalanced and there's something off, because hair follicles are mini organs.

What was the transition like for you -- from being a model at the highest level, to feeling the impact of losing your hair, then using your engineering background to shift gears and launch this business?

Giorgos Tsetis: Hair loss completely shattered my confidence, and losing your confidence in modeling isn't a good thing. It was a very high price to pay. For eight years I was struggling, trying different solutions, searching for answers, not knowing what was going on. It was exhausting to say the least. So, when I made the decision to close down my company and started working on Nutrafol, people really thought I was crazy. They wondered why I was taking the chance of getting into this industry. To me, it wasn't really a choice, because there was nothing on the market that was healthy, accessible and helping the other 80 million people who are effected in the United States. We wanted to help ourselves, but really help others by making a valuable product that addressed an unsolved issue.

For a health problem that impacts so many people, tied to an industry that produces so many products and generates so much revenue -- What did you discover about why there hasn't been a solution like Nutrafol to this point?

Giorgos Tsetis: There are really two industries at work here that have to be separated. First, there's the drugs, the pharma, which is the FDA world. Then, you have the naturals, the formulas, and the actual supplements industry. The supplement industry is really not properly regulated in this country. More surprisingly, starting a supplement company is very easy. That's why you see all of these supplements popping up, and the FDA doesn't even have the capacity to monitor them all and make sure people are able to substantiate proper claims. As a supplement manufacturer, all you have to do is create your products in a FDA approved facility, and there thousands of them in the United States. That means anyone can put a formula together and get away with claims until they get challenged by consumers or competitors. When you step into these factories, you see it's messy. You're not talking about state-of-the-art factories where people are doing the work. It's really scary.

Seeing the sobering truth about the industry and the big business at work behind the scenes -- What kept you true to your vision and what were some of the major challenges you faced getting to this point?

Giorgos Tsetis: In the beginning, we left three factories because we didn't feel confident that they could do the job at our standard. These type of factories are sourcing the ingredients for you, but you have no clue where these ingredients are coming from. You don't know the efficacy, if they're clinically tested, and what about absorption? As a company, we decided to identify these root triggers that play a role in disrupting the hair growth cycle, then rigorously tested how we can target them and what specific ingredients solve for each trigger. Then, we developed individual partnerships with top suppliers all over the world that specialized in single ingredients that actually have that efficacy. We decided to source our own ingredients because we wanted to control the entire process. At least nine of the ten companies we consulted with said we couldn't do that, because the ingredients we chose to use were incredibly expensive. That's one main reason others can't do the work we do. For example, we purchase our primary ingredient for $600 per kilo, and you can buy the standard version of that ingredient in China for $30 per kilo. Same ingredients, but ours is clinically tested and proven to be effective. We only use patented ingredients, which made others think we're crazy, but creating the absolute best product is our top priority.

It took you over a decade to conduct the research and gather insights needed to start your company -- Describe the information gap for most people suffering from hair loss and how important is educating your consumers?

Giorgos Tsetis: Consumers are lost, and that's the sad part about it. You have a serious problem, you go on the internet and see thousands of products making similar claims, and you can't choose. Most likely, you're going to try the cheapest product with the most compelling claims, realize it doesn't work, and only add further stress. When an industry is not properly regulated, this is the result. Education is such a big component of what we do. Reverse engineering a solution requires a tremendous amount of time and research. What we did was connect all these dots reading hundreds of pages of scientific literature. Education, when it comes to this, is broken into education for the physicians and education for the consumers. It's always hard to educate, because what you're really doing is changing behavior. Slowly but surely, we're actively changing the mindset of physicians and consumers, evolving the way they view and treat hair loss. That is huge, and one of the key reasons Unilever invested in the company. What we did was raise the bar by introducing a new category in the medical channel that remained untapped. That's how we disrupted the market, where now you see hundreds of doctors using Nutrafol as a trusted alternative for men and women. We also have several writers in the company who imagine how we can make this world simple and digestible for people. We want consumers to make smart choices.

With Nutrafol being a premium product, but millions of people suffer from this issue everywhere -- How do you assure the product is accessible to all who need it?

Giorgos Tsetis: Another reason Unilever was inspired to partner with us is that we really target three channels. Direct-to-consumer is one, then we target physician channels and salon channels; which are the hardest to convince. There's liability involved, so there's no doctor in the world who is going to recommend or endorse a product they don't believe in. We have about 350-400 physicians currently selling the product. A large amount of these doctors are thought-leaders or experts in the space, so they are known to speak about this issue on a world stage when it comes to new innovations. We also have each of the top 20 hair salons in the country carrying the product. There's a ton of celebrities who use the product as well. It is a premium product, but we've still made it affordable for people. When you look at other products on the market, our price point is comparable. We're also working on special programs for people in need who can't normally afford the product. If somebody is motivated, serious and really needs it -- we work to make sure they can get the product, and seek to serve as many people as possible.

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